Abstract
Ever since Robert Millikan performed his famous oil droplet experiments in 1909 we have known that electric charge is quantised and that this unit of charge is carried by a number of particles in nature – one such particle being the electron. Millikan was plagued by his inability to control the number of electrons on a droplet and only knew that a random, integer, number of electrons were present. However, recent technological progress in the fabrication of small-scale (<100 nm) solid state structures has made possible devices within which electrons can be manipulated one by one – simply by turning a dial on an experiment. The resulting phenomena, found in metallic, semiconducting, and semi-insulating materials, have boosted interest in the physics that lies between the macroscopic and the microscopic worlds – mesoscopic physics. And the strong effects that follow from the control of single electrons in such small devices have opened up opportunities for applications in both analogue and digital systems.
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